All the Way Down
by focsfyr
Summary: The loss of a loved one is always hard to deal with, and Tasuki finds himself mourning alone


Title: Ghosts of the past  
  
Part: 1/1  
  
Author: focsfyr  
  
Pairing: Tasuki+Chichiri  
  
Warnings: sap, sad  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own them and have no money. No copyright infringements are intended.  
  
Archive: if you like  
  
C&C: I'd love `em  
  
~*~flashback~*~  
  
----------scene change------------  
  
GHOSTS OF THE PAST  
  
"I can't believe in Hell / but I've got to believe in Heaven. / I wouldn't sleep at night not knowing / you were someplace better. / If you burned your wings / and fell into my arms / you know I wouldn't mind being / all the way down..." -Voltaire, "All the way down"  
  
A gentle breeze swept across the mountain slope holding the faint fragrance of wild flowers and a hint of summer warmth unusual for this high an altitude. Usually the last of the spring snow didn't melt from the upper slopes of Mt. Leikaku until mid June at least and even then, there was still a bite to the night air. But summer had arrived early this year, and with it perfect weather and crystal clear skies day and night. Even now as he sprawled in the long grass doing his best to drink himself into unconsciousness, each star sparkled with an unusual intensity he found almost obscene.  
  
Today was his lover's birthday and though the rest of the world went on oblivious to the occasion, it was not a day to be forgotten.  
  
Chichiri was one of Suzaku's chosen, and Tasuki's closest friend. Closer even than Kouji, for though the two bandits had laughed and fought together and shared every secret, Tasuki and Chichiri had lived, traveled and loved together. They had shared the pain of the other Seishi's deaths and had held each other while they cried hopeless tears for loved ones lost. They had faced death together...and when it was all over and done with, had found the strength to live together.  
  
Throughout it all, Chichiri had been the voice of reason amidst the insanity and chaos, always there to offer a word, a smile, a bit of advice. Chichiri was the calm in his storm and...  
  
Amber eyes searched the heavens, picking out two sets of stars that were so close together they almost overlapped from amidst the hopeless jumble strewn across the sky.  
  
They had wandered for years after the end of the war, heartsick and weary, unable to escape loneliness's sharp sting.  
  
At first they had claimed it was merely for conveniences sake. After all, they were the only ones left and after what they had seen and experienced, they couldn't just go back to their old lives. Their souls were too stained by the blood of enemies they had ruthlessly killed and the friends that they had been helpless to save.  
  
But though there was a measure of truth in their excuse, it was not the real reason. They wouldn't--couldn't admit that they, a bandit that had never needed more than an adventure and a monk that had never needed more than his own company, just didn't want to be alone.  
  
But over the months, the lie had lost its substance and faded into a comfortable companionship, then to a close friendship and then, eventually, to love.  
  
He could still see the shock on Chichiri's face when he had ambushed the monk after dinner one night and pulled him into their first kiss. Once kiss had become many and they had tumbled into the fire-warmed blankets, content for now to exchange kisses and lingering touches until they fell asleep in each other's arms.  
  
The next morning had been awkward, filled with meaningless apologies and half-hearted protests, each deathly afraid of having disgusted or offended the other and conveniently forgetting that every heartfelt caress had been returned with equal fervor.  
  
It had dragged on and on, until it finally became too much.  
  
~*~  
  
It's okay no da, I'm as much at fault as you..."  
  
"But I started it and..."  
  
"And I shouldn't have continued it..."  
  
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean...no." Tasuki denied his own protesting words with a shake of the head. "No, I'm not gonna apologize, `cause I'm not sorry."  
  
He looked up into Chichiri's face, the monk's startled--hopeful? Right, he should be so lucky--expression showing clearly in the absence of the ever present mask.  
  
"I'm not sorry for kissing ya `cause you can't regret kissing someone you love..." He kept his gaze locked on the solitary burgundy eye, searching for...anything. Any hint of acceptance, rejection, regret...something to tell him whether to continue or to quit while he was ahead. But the mask that was absent from his face seemed to have taken up residence in his eye, shuttering the windows to his soul, and only mirrored surprise and his own inner turmoil.  
  
Before he could change his mind, he plunged recklessly onward. "And even if you hate me for saying it and feeling it an' kissing you...I do love you."  
  
Despite his resolve to see it through to the end, he felt his eyes slip shut and bit his lip with one sharp fang, not wanting to look, to see, because as long as he didn't see rejection, he could pretend that there was still hope.  
  
Silence. It was the most frightening thing he had ever heard and it hung heavy in the cool morning air, smothering them with its intensity. Finally, the soft rustle of cloth broke the silence. Fearing that Chichiri was going to just walk away without saying a word in response, Tasuki's opened his eyes...and was met with the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. And a loving gaze untainted by the deep sadness that had haunted it for as long as Tasuki had known him.  
  
His heat thudded in his chest as Chichiri slowly leaned forward and captured his lips in a kiss sweeter than anything he had ever tasted. And when it finally ended, strong, slender arms slipped around his waist and hugged him tight.  
  
"I love you too."  
  
~*~  
  
A single tear escaped his eyes and spilled across his cheek, followed closely by another, and another, but he choked back the sobs that threatened to wrench free of his throat.  
  
When they had finished wandering and had returned to Mt. Leikaku, their relationship had been greeted with skepticism at best, outright suspicion at worst. Kouji was the only one that didn't seem to find it strange that the leader of a bandit gang had taken a man, a monk for a lover. But gradually, the bandits had adjusted to the many changes in their leader, and after he lent his magical aid when the stronghold came under attack, accepted Chichiri as one of their own rather than treating him like an unwelcome guest.  
  
Year after happy year passed by almost unnoticed, the two former Seishi living an seemingly charmed existence full of love and warmth...until a year ago tonight, the night of his thirty-second birthday, when the fever that had taken Chichiri's health only a week before, also took his life.  
  
Tasuki had tried to follow him.  
  
The flame-haired bandit had spent the last few years wrapped in the warmth of his beloved's affection and couldn't imagine a life without him in it. The agony of his lover's passing had screamed across the depths of his soul just as it had for each of the other Seishi, the thread that bound them stretching taught and breaking with an almost audible snap! but this time was infinitely different. It wasn't just a close friend whose life had been lost, it was the man that had laid claim to his heart, and this time the pain didn't fade. Instead, it tore jagged wounds into his heart and soul that even the best of healers could never cure...because Chichiri had been half his soul and all of his heart.  
  
No healer could help because there was nothing left to heal, only a gaping emptiness that threatened to swallow him whole.  
  
He had snatched up the knife he carried in his boot and sliced his wrists halfway to the elbow, watching with morbid fascination the pool of crimson staining the floor as darkness tugged insistently at the edges of his vision before stealing it altogether.  
  
It had been nearly two days before he awoke, head pounding, arms aching to the sight of his second-in-commands haggard face. Kouji hadn't slept since Chichiri's death. He had been too wrapped up in mourning one friend while trying to save another, and it showed in the dark circles beneath his reddened eyes and listless slump of his shoulders as he waited for his best friend to wake up and yell at him for saving his life.  
  
He hadn't. Tasuki hadn't had the energy to yell, instead settling for glowering darkly from sorrowful eyes and growling a few choice curses in a voice gone hoarse from holding back tears. Kouji bore the torrent of insults without argument and later, held him when he finally gave in and cried, setting his feet on the path that would eventually lead him out of depression's depths and offer some semblance of peace.  
  
Tasuki never found out just who had found his dying body in time to save his life. It was a deed none of the bandits would dare lie about, but not one of them had ever admitted to.  
  
But that didn't matter. Though still prone to fits of depression, he managed to go on living without sinking to the depths that had driven him to try to take his life.  
  
Until tonight, the anniversary of Chichiri's death and his birth. Unable to bear the jokes and drunken laughter, he had abandoned the keep for the quiet of a mountain meadow and the comfort found in the bottom of a sake jug.  
  
It worked... Worked? He laughed bitterly. How could he say that when he was sprawled on a mountainside with sake bottles scattered in the grass and tears pouring down his face? He was so drunk he couldn't see straight let alone fend off the echoing feeling of emptiness that had risen all at once to drown him in sorrow...and it hurt. Like a dam breaking, all the pain he had suppressed with a year of forced cheerfulness crashed relentlessly upon him. And the floodwaters just kept rising, each moment bringing him that much closer to drowning in his own tears.  
  
No.  
  
Warm arms reached out and cradled his body, holding his head above the torrent.  
  
Don't give up just yet, koibito, there's so much left to see...  
  
They dragged him from the raging current and breathed life back into his world-weary body.  
  
...so many people who would miss you if you gave up on life now. They've already mourned so many friends, do you think they wouldn't miss you?  
  
That voice...he knew that voice...  
  
Kouji's already mourned one friend's loss, would you make him mourn another?  
  
...a voice he hadn't heard in a year.  
  
You have so much life left to live, so many joys yet to experience if you would just give it a chance. Just let go...  
  
"Let go?" he demanded angrily. "Do you even know what you're asking? I love you, how can you ask me to let you go!"  
  
I just want you to be happy. That achingly familiar voice was heavy with regret. You don't have to let go forever, just enough to be able to live your life. Enough to make peace with yourself...with me.  
  
"With you...?" He didn't dare open his eyes--when had he closed them?--for he knew the moment he did, he would awake from this dream  
  
Forgive me, I love you more than anything. I didn't want to leave you, but I didn't exactly have a choice. Forgive me. Please?  
  
Forgive...  
  
Open your eyes, Tasuki-chan.  
  
"No."  
  
Open them.  
  
"I don't want you to go..."  
  
I won't...  
  
"You will! You'll disappear as soon as I look. I'll wake up and you'll be gone..."  
  
Warm lips brushed softly against his, slender fingers tracing lightly across tear-stained cheeks.  
  
It felt so good...  
  
Does this feel like a dream?  
  
...so real.  
  
"Tasuki?"  
  
H reached up and tangled his fingers in a silken ponytail, pressing his lips to those of his unseen lover.  
  
"Tasuki!"  
  
Tasuki let out a soft whimper of protest as the other man pulled away and pressed something into his palm.  
  
Take this.  
  
It felt like...beads?  
  
And know that I will always be with you, even if you can't see me. And when your time comes, I will be waiting for you.  
  
"Don't leave," he pleaded, the warmth that had come with that brief kiss lingering on in his soul.  
  
Open your eyes.  
  
"No..."  
  
Open them.  
  
"TASUKI!"  
  
His eyes snapped open at the frantic yell only to be blinded by the brilliance of the rising sun.  
  
Kouji ran the last few yards up the slope and dropped to his knees beside him. "So this's where ya ran off too. I thought..." he trailed off, trying to think of a tactful way to say he had thought the redhead might do something stupid...like `accidentally' walk off a cliff.  
  
"I...uh...was just worried," he ended lamely, "that's all."  
  
"Well, ya don't have to worry `bout me. I'm not gonna be leaving any time soon." To Kouji's utter shock, Tasuki smiled brightly before hauling them both to their feet.  
  
"Now how `bout we head back to the keep an' get some breakfast, I'm starving!"  
  
With a dubious nod, Kouji turned to head back down the mountainside. A flash of color caught his eye. "Whatcha got there?"  
  
His eyes widened as he caught site of a string of red and green beads clenched tightly in his friend's hand.  
  
But that was impossibe...being a monk, Chichiri's prayer beads had been buried with him...  
  
Tasuki's radiant smile took on a hint of sadness. "Just a reminder...that no one you love is ever really lost."  
  
I love you.  
  
OWARI 


End file.
